Isla Vista 7-Eleven clerk made daunting rescue

May 27, 2014

Elliot Rodger

As most bystanders fled the scene, an Isla Vista 7-Eleven clerk ran into the line of fire Friday night and rescued a wounded woman caught in crossfire during the mass murder near the UC Santa Barbara campus. [KEYT]

During shooter Elliot Rodger’s rampage Friday night, a woman with a gunshot wound to the leg lay bleeding on the sidewalk by El Embarcadero Street. UCSB student and 7-Eleven worker Jorge Anaya noticed the woman, known as Megan, about 40 feet away from his store and ran toward a shootout between Rodger and sheriff’s deputies to save her.

Anaya held Megan up as she limped into the 7-Eleven to safety.

“She was looking at her leg the whole time and asked me am I bleeding,” Anaya said. “I tried not to panic her.”

Anaya then assisted others inside the store in administering first aid. Megan survived and is now out of the hospital on crutches.

A memorial for six victims who did died Friday will take place at UCSB today. Classes are canceled as students continue to regroup from the massacre.

Elsewhere, debate over gun control is reigniting. Santa Maria attorney and father of one of the slain students, Richard Martinez, is calling on lawmakers to pass legislation that will prevent deadly shooting sprees.

Opponents of stricter gun laws are pointing to the deaths of three of the victims whom Rodger beat and stabbed to death.

We have had many incidents of mentally ill people, off their medication, killing in SLO County.

The Downs kid from Atascadero killed two. The man from San Jose murdered a father in the laundramat in Paso. A son killed his mother in SLO. Sunni Jackson killed her mother in Paso. An Atascadero man shot and killed a neighbor for no reason. A woman kidnapped a boy in Atascadero.

All of these crimes were done by mentally ill people in the community who were off their medication, and all of these could possibly have been prevented if SLO County had Laura’s Law.

Tragically, the numerous examples listed are only anecdotal, and far from comprehensive.
The viewpoint is also biased…cherry-picking what ‘information’ they want , while ignoring leaving out many other parameters .
You can’t have your own facts. Not a valid presentation.

How come no one talks about the 3 who were stabbed (not shot)? Is it because it does not enter into the anti-gun debate, or is it because they had Chinese surnames? The silence is deafening either way.

Over the last 45 years, there have been over 4.5 million people shot by guns in the US. Of those, 1.34 million deaths resulted.
Every year in the US over 130,000 people are shot by guns. That’s 357 a day, every day.

Does anybody care that the father was a director of a famous snuff flick? Does anybody care that this social illness affects many? Does anybody care that we allow sicko movies to become recognized success. We do care when it is our child but unfortunately we just look for another bandage. Shoot first politics is the real problem forged by the, it’s always somebody elses fault, lawyers. Respect is taught in our homes, woops, over 50% are broken and who can fix that.

I agree. But how are you going to stop them? By heaping on even more worthless gun control laws? CA already has a mountain of them and all they do it make it more difficult on law-abiding and sane gun owners.

How about allowing a full integration of all relevant data bases between all branches of law enforcement, for a start. Allow any law enforcement agency to denote a person as “questionable” as to being mentally fit to own a firearm in that same data system so that when a person who has any sort of history attempts to purchase a firearm, they are interviewed by an officer of the law who could be accompanied by a mental health expert to give an educated opinion of whether or not that person should be allowed to own a such a weapon?

So how are the judge and/or the mental diagnostician going to be made aware of an unfit individual?

We don’t allow six year olds to drive cars. Not everyone can fly a jet airplane. We don’t let just anyone buy dynamite over-the-counter at the hardware store. All sorts of things that an intelligent society restricts only to qualified and responsible parties when it comes to public safety.

The first line of defense in determining whether an individual is a “danger to self or others” in the community setting is the peace officer (when called on to do so):

California Welfare & Institutions Code Section 5150:

5150(a) – When a person, as a result of a mental health disorder, is a danger to others, or to himself or herself, or gravely disabled, a peace officer, professional person in charge of a facility designated by the county for evaluation and treatment, member of the attending staff, as defined by regulation, of a facility designated by the county for evaluation and treatment, designated members of a mobile crisis team, or professional person designated by the county may, upon probable cause, take, or cause to be taken, the person into custody for a period of up to 72 hours for assessment, evaluation, and crisis intervention…”

Then using the guidelines of California Welfare & Institutions Code Section 8102 his or her guns can be confiscated:

8102(a) – Whenever a person, who has been detained or apprehended for examination of his or her mental condition or who is a person described in Section 8100 or 8103, is found to own, have in his or her possession or under his or her control, any firearm whatsoever, or any other deadly weapon, the firearm or other deadly weapon shall be confiscated by any law enforcement agency or peace officer, who shall retain custody of the firearm or other deadly weapon.

I believe this is where the victims of Isla Vista were failed. In California, Peace Officers undergo a minimum of 650 hours of academy training before becoming a “sworn officer”, only 6 of those hours are required for the handling of mentally ill suspects or individuals, and there is absolutely no follow up, extended or re-certification training required.

I’m not blaming the Sheriff’s Deputies, I just don’t believe they had the necessary training to make that first line of defense determination. There is one nationally recognized training for peace officers in the area of handling the mentally ill, Crisis Intervention Training (CIT), and from what I’ve been able to find out the SBC Sheriff’s Deputies are not required to obtain that training.

Yes, SamLuis that’s exactly what should be done. In this case the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, especially when it comes to the right to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. I would love to see you in front of any of these kids parents and tell them the difficulties you’ll encounter in buying a gun if anything is done to try and preventive this type of thing from happening again, and again, and again, and again. You probably would though, strapped down with a Glock!

A more accurate number of mass shootings (where a person who kills 4 or more) since 1982 is 70 (since you seem to think the only relevant number that should be figured in is those killed, not those wounded). Of the 143 guns possessed by those killers, 107 were obtained legally. Of those 70 mass shooting 12 killed kids! Targeted kids! And the state with the most? The one with your mountainous amount of laws already intact, California (7). I guess that’s acceptable though, as long as it doesn’t inconvenience you and others in legally obtaining your guns, right? Just the cost of doin’ business, huh?

Damn! Almost forgot to mention… Did you notice that the one kid who acted and put himself in harms way to help someone didn’t come out with guns blazin’? Where were any of your gun totin’ citizens then? Probably still tryin’ to put their Depends on as not to piss themselves while hidin’ in the closet huggin’ there guns for dear life…

We’ll try it as many time as you like, but you and those that think like you, who want no realistic controls in the first place cannot be taken seriously in this conversation. When you, and those that think like you, can come up with even a realistic compromise to your dogmatic “our way or no way” approach to this conversation I’ll be willing to listen, until then? Bupkis!

Being willfully ignorant is not my problem but I may have a ulterior motive, or two, maybe even three; I was shot at the age of 12. By whom? By some dumb kid shooting his Dad’s .22 out the window of his upstairs window seeing if he could, in his words, “…hit Catalina” (distance probably would have caused that to fail but my cresting a wave at just the right moment insured it wouldn’t get there). The pain and fear is something that I feel every time I hear about someone else being shot. And there’s this when I was 25; hearing gun fire from the house across the street I walked in to find a woman with half her head (literally) imbedded in the wall behind her while she sat in a kitchen chair like she was waiting for dinner and her husband laying on the floor after putting that same shotgun under his chin that he just used to kill his wife with, and, pulling the trigger to only lose his jaw, lips, eyelids, eyebrows and part of his forehead into the ceiling and surviving, well, my pain became even further imbedded. And then in 2007, being called to one of my good friends camp sight (no, he wasn’t homeless, just camping) becasue one of our mutual friends had seen him laying motionless on the bed and wasn’t responding to his calls, and he couldn’t get to him because of his dog (no one got along with Bubba, except me and Mike), and to find him with a .380 in his mouth and part of his head gone (no, not gone, just repositioned all over the camper walls), well, my motives may well be ulterior but definitely not ignorant.

Guns kill people, that’s what their predominant use is intended for, they were invented for that sole purpose and if 10,000 guns are taken from the streets to save one person it’s a price well worth paying!

I kinda like your question mutangglp, I really do. I just wonder without the “murder” laws we have in place how many of us would be here to discuss this? Then deduct from that number those who would be afraid someone would murder them for voicing their opinion? We’d probably not be having this conversation at all. Well, maybe, but probably just between you and I.

Mr. Martinez, as an attorney, could work on real changes in situations such as this.

Mr. Rodgers had major social issues, he was in therapy for many years, he obviously sent red flags in parents, assume therapists, roommates, classmates, police who were sent to intervene at the request of his parents a month ago.

If we had a mental health program that flagged this young man, as well as all the other young men who professionals and family were fully aware of their issues before committing these tragedies on our society could be put on a list for the public safety system to assist in investigating or when they go to buy guns, ammunitions, etc.

This disaster was not caused by guns but a dysfunctional mental health system. If not another gun was sold, we would still continue to have these tragedies because it is not the gun but the person behind the gun, the knife, the car, the bomb, the poison, etc.

You cannot punish a whole society for the failure of the parents, the mental health system, the public safety personnel. We spend a lot of money for remedies. Remember, the police never even ran a check to see if he brought any guns last month when his parents reported this. That was a major failure of the system considering the rants going on on YouTube and his parents calling the police.

Great Britain had 30 murders by firearm in 2012. The US had 8,855 in the same year.
Australia changed their laws in 1996 after a spate of mass killings by gun. They instituted strict bans on automatic and semi-automatic weapons. They have had ZERO mass killings by guns since.

Yes, more should be done in mental health awareness and prevention. I argue that those among us that have an obsession of acquiring, owning, and using these deadly weapons in multiples are demonstrably mentally ill..

Why do you lie? Why do you mislead? Why don’t you ever include reputable sources?

Here is a short and very informative video using FBI and the Home Office (England and Wales) violent crime statistics. Did you know that the violent crime rate of England/Wales is 3.5 times that of the US? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ooa98FHuaU0 You won’t watch it because you cannot refute it but others he might enjoy seeing some remarkable analysis.

We also need to define what a “mass killing” is. While no universal definition exists, the FBI considers four or more people killed in a single incident (not including the killer), typically in a single location as a “mass killing.” Far less than 1% of those killed in the US via guns are killed in “mass killing” scenarios. Why are you ignoring 99%+ of the killings and focusing on less than 1%? Because doing so might give you the opportunity to ban more guns? In any event Australia has had plenty of killings via guns since 1996. You knew that, right?

Finally your obsession with those who choose to legally own firearms is clearly sicko and posting about it is clearly a cry for help. Why no actually get some help rather than continuing to post lies and your sicko projections?

Sam, Don’t fall into the trap of fighting misinformation with speculation and assumptions. I don’t know that Slowerfaster is intentionally trying to propagandize people into believing what he believes and I suspect that you don’t either. He could well be as brain-washed as anyone who believes everything Rush Limbaugh or Glen Beck spouts and may just be passing on the false claims from those whose viewpoints he wants to believe.

Can I ask a question of you SamLuis? How is it you can use marginalizing and insulting words and terms such as “sicko”, “sicko projections”, “clearly a call for help” and “liar” when you condemn others for, and I’ll quote you… “…resorting to the use of expletives? Is that supposed to make your comments more believable/credible?” I can’t call you an asshole but you can call me sicko? A liar? Why? And if you do, it makes you more “believable/credible” then me? Wow! Talk about movin’ the goal posts to suit your needs?

But what would expect from a guy who says no further inconvenience of me gettin’ another gun, or any one else for that matter, trumps the right of us being a little safer? I’ll tell you what your argument is… A self centered, self serving, don’t give a damn about anyone else but myself, pure sickofied bullshit!

By-the-way, ar you related to Ted Slanders, or do the two of you share styles of insulting people to get your slanted views across?